Stronger choice emerges

Two strong candidates, both with deep Valley roots, are vying to represent the new 5th Senate District.

Two strong candidates, both with deep Valley roots, are vying to represent the new 5th Senate District.

Republican Bill Berryhill and Democrat Cathleen Galgiani, both members of the Assembly, come with admirable public service credentials and a sincere desire to serve.

But Berryhill is the more forceful candidate, not that we believe his campaign has been all that civil.

Now a resident of the Brookside area of Stockton, Berryhill enjoys a legislative pedigree handed down from the longtime legislative service of his father and his brother, a current member of the state Senate.

It is Berryhill's convincing independent nature that sets him apart from Galgiani and some of his fellow Republicans. For example, he dismisses anti-tax pledges taken by some lawmakers. "If you sign the pledge you're locked in," he told members of The Record's editorial board.

While he and Galgiani differ little in their opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to sluice more north state water to the south by bypassing the Delta, Berryhill has an actual alternative.

However, the two candidates split on the high-speed rail project that Galgiani has championed for years at the expense of other needs and which Berryhill chides as making "no sense to me at all."

The longtime Modesto-area farmer has moved to Stockton to live in the new district, which for the most part is San Joaquin County. He said he is in the process of setting up a business here in addition to his agricultural activities, including operations in this county.

Galgiani, a fifth generation Stocktonian, has moved back into her Stockton home after taking up residence in Livingston to be more centrally located in the Assembly district she currently represents.

While we support Berryhill's candidacy, his campaign has been disappointing because of the vicious, unnecessary and personal charges he has made about Galgiani's responsibility for prison realignment.

Distasteful as realignment is, Berryhill knows full well it was forced on the state by a federal court that demanded the state reduce the prison population.

Galgiani voted for the realignment legislation. Berryhill did not. Neither did he offer an alternate solution.

That makes his attacks on Galgiani ring hollow.

The attack also makes Berryhill less than the moderate conservative candidate voters have a right to expect.